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Rh at the close of day for the purpose of performing their vows to her and to Pan. We further learn from Aristodemus, quoted by the scholiast on this passage, that Pindar himself raised this shrine to the venerable Mother of the Gods. He likewise cites a fragment of an ode or choral hymn addressed to Pan by our poet, invoking that deity, as president of Arcadia, and companion of the nymphs in their dances, to smile propitiously on his songs. Indeed, the piety of the Theban bard is everywhere conspicuous, and worthy of admiration. It is related by Plutarch, in his Life of Alexander, that when, after a most determined and vigorous defence, the city of Thebes was levelled to the ground by that conqueror, the posterity of Pindar were exempted from the hard fate which attended his captive fellow-townsmen.

The same honour had on a former occasion been paid to the habitation of his descendants by the Lacedæmonians; and Pausanias, the Grecian traveller, relates that he had seen the ruins of this house near the fountain Dirce.

The manner of Pindar's death has been variously related by different authors. Pausanias gravely records as authentic the traditionary tale, that while our poet was living in the height of honour and glory, Proserpine appeared to him in a dream, and complained that she alone of all the deities